


Stardust

by victoridiaz



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff, I have a thing for wings and also for stars and both of those things are painstakingly obvious, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 00:36:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19366735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victoridiaz/pseuds/victoridiaz
Summary: Angels and Demons don't usually take their wings out. They just get in the way, really. Except, of course, when you're creating the universe. And also when they get itchy and uncomfortable and so badly unkept that you've got to do something about it.Crowley and Aziraphale in the bookshop.  That's all.





	Stardust

            Crowley didn’t read books. Or at least, that’s what he told himself. Books were dry - they were dreary material and you couldn’t _yell_ at them. Well, I suppose you could, but what sort of effect would it have? Certainly not the effect on a living creature. Aziraphale begged to differ, of course. He claimed books were alive. Crowley had never really believed him. Books were just words on a page.

            Were they? Crowley had stared down at the book, taken aback by how easily it had caught his attention. The only thing that ever caught his attention in Aziraphale’s bookshop was Aziraphale, and occasionally the house plant Crowley had given him for Warlock’s birthday once upon a time, which was now perched delightfully upon the windowsill, looking to be thoroughly enjoying life. Crowley made an effort to scowl at it.

            But this book had shone like the sun itself. Crowley had felt its presence the moment he had stepped into the bookshop. It had an aura of swirling gravity that was pulling Crowley towards it like a black hole.

            Stars lined the cover. They ran down the spine like delicate sparkles and they sprawled across the back like diamonds scattered across a silken, inky sky. Nebulae drifted across the front, and the pages were filled with the most wondrous images and words. _Menkalinan. Antares._ In was in this moment that Crowley picked up the book with the most delicate of demonic hands, turned it over, and concluded that perhaps books _could_ be alive. They were trees once. Ink was oil, taken from the cores of the Earth, from the heavens, thousands of stars living and dying, all leading up to create Earth, to create these beautiful elements, to create this book. The pages danced with celestial light and harmony. For a moment, Crowley was an angel again. He stretched his perfect white wings and flew through the universe. He breathed life into a star. He took life from another. He took and he gave and he took and he asked, and then he fell.

            “Oh, I put that one out there for you, actually. I thought you might like it.”

            Aziraphale’s voice brought Crowley out of his temporary delusion. “Did you? It’s, um. It’s quite nice.” Crowley ran his hands down the spine of the book. He hadn’t come in here for that nonsense. He had other, more important business to attend to (mostly to do with scowling at the plant.) But all the while, the book remained tucked neatly down amongst the other things that dwelled in the gaps between Crowley’s electrons.

           

            And now _Killer Queen_ was blaring through the speakers of the Bentley as Crowley drove down the street towards the bookshop. It was 11 pm, and he had decided he couldn’t stand it anymore. Perhaps the book had remembered. It had been staring at him oh so intently from the top of his shelf in his flat. Perhaps it felt out of place there, among the dreary gray walls and dull furniture. It was the only thing on display, other than the plants. Still, it had stared at Crowley every minute he spent under its gaze, and it felt off-putting, looking at all that star stuff compressed into one book. It was like the entire universe was constantly watching him, and maybe judging him for watching cartoons too much. Not that it already wasn’t.

Crowley had read the book a few times, and marvelled in its beauty, but now he felt that it needed to go. Besides, it _belonged_ to Aziraphale. Aziraphale owned it. Crowley had taken it. He’d taken books before, and he’d certainly stolen his fair share of stuff, being a demon, but stealing from Aziraphale’s shop felt wrong. Crowley could have always just asked the Angel, and of course Aziraphale would have said yes, but Crowley didn’t want him to go around thinking that he was the kind of person that read books. So he reduced them to a size smaller than electrons, went away with them for a few days, and always brought them back. He had been planning to take this one back in the morning, but had decided that he couldn’t stand its presence anymore. _YOU’RE A STRANGE FELLOW, ANTHONY J CROWLEY._ Said Freddie Mercury from the speakers. Crowley kicked his phone so hard the music stopped playing.  

            Crowley pulled up outside the bookshop at precisely 11:19 pm. He tried to shove his lingering thoughts about Angels and stars out of his mind, opened the back seat, grabbed the book, and trudged down the dark path toward the store. He didn’t need a key to get in.

            The door opened slowly and softly. There was only one light on in the store, and it was coming from the back. Aziraphale’s desk. Of course, angels didn’t need any sleep, so Aziraphale usually stayed up all night reading. Crowley, on the other hand, loved sleep. It was a simple human pleasure, but he adored it. Sleep, at the moment, however, was not on his mind.

            He moved slowly through the store and rested the book gently on the display table he had taken it from. He didn’t want to disturb Aziraphale, or be caught awkwardly lingering around the shop late at night. He just wanted to drop off the book and leave. But as he was turning, something caught his eye.

            Something very soft and very bright was moving at the back of the bookshop. Crowley took a few steps forward to get a better view, then stifled a noise in his throat as his gaze fell upon Aziraphale, sitting in his desk, with two magnificent, effervescent, shining white wings stretched out around him.

 

            Sometimes, Crowley forgot he had wings. He hardly ever took them out. They got in the way of everything, really. You couldn’t take your coat off if you took them out while you were wearing it, they got stuck in a number of ways, and they were dreadful to keep groomed by yourself. Crowley, instead, had settled for a tattoo of two wings drawn on his back and decided that was just as good as the real thing.

            Aziraphale, it seemed, never took his out. In fact, Crowley could only remember one occasion when he had seen the angel do it, and that was his first time meeting him, at Eden, at the day the world had begun and ended, and the day Crowley realized that demons, however cunningly unhuman they may seem, were still cursed with the torture of having to bear a heart.

            And now Aziraphale had his wings out behind him, beautiful, shining, soft, wonderful wings that radiated ethereal energy and seemed to give off a life of their own. Crowley felt a strange feeling fall down his spine.

            Just as he did it, the wings rearranged themselves and the familiar face of Aziraphale turned in his chair. “Is someone-” Aziraphale stopped when he saw Crowley. The angel took a sharp intake of breath and ruffled his feathers. “Hello, Crowley.”

            “I was just, uh, returning something.” Said Crowley, shoving his hands in his pockets. They were fidgeting enough to power a city. “I’ll be on my way.”

            “No rush.” Said Aziraphale, turning back. “I’m sorry I’m in such a dreadful state at the moment. It was just getting so uncomfortable, I needed to do something about it. Look at the state of these feathers.” He fluttered his right wing anxiously.

            Crowley moved toward him with a burning curiosity. “They’re, er, really nice, Aziraphale.” He said softly.

            Crowley watched as the angel twisted uncomfortably as he tried to reach a ruffled feather at the back of his left wing. He gave up eventually and let out a tired sigh. “It’s no use. They’ve never been able to stay groomed.”

            Crowley felt a mixture of emotions at the moment. One of them, strangely, was exasperation. Aziraphale was doing the thing again. He could so easily perform a simple miracle, yet here he was, helpless, and there was Crowley. Another one, significantly larger one to be fair, was tumultuous, strange longing. Crowley wanted so badly to touch those wings. They shone bright as stars, they glittered like suns, they were the most beautiful things he had ever laid his eyes on. The candlelight flickered and gently lapped at his face as Crowley stood, staring, and wondering. What were angel wings made of?

            They were made of the light of a million billion stars, of stardust and atoms and electrons and galaxies and clusters and the universe. They were holy, blessed, they were made of love.

            Also, why did Aziraphale still read by candlelight?

 

            Crowley feared to touch them. He always had that fear. That in the end, if he finally got what he wanted, if Aziraphale was there and he was there and they were together, if he felt the angel in ways not even God could dream of, that it might destroy him. Angel and demon. They might explode, or melt, or something along those lines. That fear was real. There was also hope, and the thought that maybe nothing would happen. Maybe love was enough of an emotion that could be felt by both sides, with no consequences. Maybe.

            Trying to put this all into words, Crowley said softly: “You torture me, angel.”

            Aziraphale turned and looked at him with the softest, most melted look in the universe. Crowley found himself reaching out his hand.

            “You can touch them, if you like.”

            Crowley closed his eyes and breathed out, and ran his hands over the magnificent feathers. It was like touching all of heaven at once, and it hurt Crowley and made him feel wonderful at the same time. As his hands ran down the silkiest of downy wings the feathers rearranged themselves and fell softly into their proper place. Crowley could sense Aziraphale relax.

            Crowley hadn’t realized he’d taken his out. Great and dark, they were the black hole to Aziraphale’s blazing starlight. Embarrassed, Crowley tucked them behind him, feeling each meticulous feather brush against his back. “I didn’t mean-“

            “It’s alright.” Said Aziraphale. “yours are so lovely. However do you manage to keep them in such good condition?” Aziraphale brushed the tip of his wing against Crowley’s and he struggled to stay grounded.

            “I’ve just got more natural style than you, I’m afraid.” He muttered playfully.

            “It’s a miracle, really.” Said Aziraphale. The words were an invitation.

            Crowley continued to run his hands down Aziraphale's silky wings. They were nothing like the rough, thick feathers of his own. They were soft and beautiful and they shone like stars and they were Aziraphale’s.

            Aziraphale closed his eyes. “What book were you returning?” He murmured softly.

            Hands. Wings. Magic. “Uh. Just the one about astronomy.”

            “I put that one out for you, you know. Don’t think I don’t know you enjoy a book from time to time. You didn’t have to bring it back.”

            “Angel, I had to. You don’t understand. It was like the book was…moving. It brought back something in me. Too many memories.” Crowley’s hands slipped down the back of Aziraphale’s wings and onto their base.

            “You helped create the stars, didn’t you.” Aziraphale didn’t tighten as Crowley’s touch extended beyond his wings. “Maybe one day you could show me.”

            Crowley hovered his hand above Aziraphale’s back. “Maybe I could.”

            _Crowley couldn’t do it. Supernovas were exploding everywhere and yet somewhere there was calm, somewhere inside the black hole there was a center and there was Crowley and there was Aziraphale and it was just them and the entire universe, there was no God and no Heaven and no Hell, no angels and no demons, just Crowley and Aziraphale and millions and millions and millions of stars. Crowley had wings, and they were white._  

            A torturous thing to give demons, hearts.

            Crowley let his hand fall and put away his wings. As he did so, a single black feather divorced itself from the nebula of Crowley and gently fell to the ground.

            Crowley did not notice, but Aziraphale did. Later, the angel spent hours staring at it, running his hands over it, pondering it. At the base of the feather, light and airy and just having freed itself from the wing, were a few brilliant white strands, like stars across an inky night sky.

            Aziraphale decided he would not sell the book on astronomy. Instead he read it, and as he turned over each name of each star in his mouth like candy, he used the perfect feather as a bookmark, each night noticing a different soft hair that was a lovely snow colour. Afterwards, he kept the book in a safe place, with the feather tucked neatly inside it. That was how it was going to stay for a while. Preferably for eternity.

            When Aziraphale put his wings away that night, they were the finest groomed angel wings you could have ever seen.

            Crowley went home and massaged his eyes, and decided that he needed a stronger pair of sunglasses, and Crowley was one who had looked directly into the heart of a star and had still not been blinded by its light.

 

           

**Author's Note:**

> I had to look up so many synonyms of "soft" that thesaures.com is now my most visited site. Not that it already wasn't battling for tops with pintrest. Pintrest is a really good place to find wonderful inspiration, actually. How do so many people know how to draw such beautiful wings? 
> 
> This was just a projection of my obsession with wings and stars.


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